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Introducing PAS 7342: A new benchmark for sustainable investment funds
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Introducing PAS 7342: A new benchmark for sustainable investment funds

The growing demand for sustainable finance has transformed the investment landscape, but it has also introduced new challenges, particularly around transparency and accountability. Amid concerns about the misrepresentation of sustainability credentials, the newly published PAS 7342:2025 Sustainable investment funds – design, implementation, monitoring and communication of sustainability attributes – Specification offers a much-needed framework of good practice. This standard is the latest in a suite of sustainable finance initiatives sponsored jointly by industry and the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ). PAS 7342 sets out clear requirements for fund managers to design, manage, and communicate sustainable investment funds responsibly, providing critical tools to ensure funds align with their stated objectives and maintain investor confidence. The growing importance of standards in sustainable finance The rapid growth of sustainable investments, driven by heightened awareness of ESG issues and net-zero goals, has underscored the need for robust standards to ensure transparency and accountability. Greenwashing has emerged as a significant problem, prompting regulators like the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) to introduce frameworks such as the Sustainability Disclosure Requirements (SDR) and investment labels. The PAS is designed to complement SDR but places a greater emphasis on the building blocks and practicalities of investing sustainably.  This includes directing fund managers to convey the changeable nature of investing, and to document - in ‘sustainability policy’ information – the ‘issues’ a fund considers, and the ‘approaches’ the fund employs. Learn more about how standards are supporting financial services organizations here. What PAS 7342 covers Building on earlier standards like PAS 7340 (now BS ISO 32210) and PAS 7341, PAS 7342 applies to individual funds, whether they involve single-asset investments, multi-asset portfolios, or fund-of-fund structures. Key areas covered in it include: Designing sustainable investment strategies Requirements for creating and documenting strategies, objectives, policies and approaches, including the naming of funds and alignment with stated sustainability objectives. Communicating intent and outcomes Clear articulation of a fund’s aims, objectives, and intended impacts, with transparency around the policies guiding investment decisions. Governance and monitoring Emphasis on robust governance processes for investment selection, stewardship activities, and ongoing monitoring to ensure alignment with sustainability claims.  Verification and labelling Guidance on assembling evidence and demonstrating the validity of sustainability-related claims, aiding in the selection, categorization and labelling of funds.  Intermediary and investor communication Tools for fund managers to demonstrate to financial advisers, portfolio managers, and investors that a fund meets its published sustainability criteria, along with protocols for addressing queries and complaints. Who should use the new PAS 7342 fund standard? PAS 7342 is designed primarily for fund managers but is also highly relevant to the broader investment ecosystem, including: Financial intermediaries: Wealth managers, portfolio planners, and independent financial advisers can use the standard to assess and represent sustainable funds accurately. Regulators and policymakers: Provides a benchmark for what good practice looks like. Investors: Offers insights into what they should expect from sustainable funds, helping them make informed decisions and align their investments with their values. What are the benefits of sustainable fund PAS 7342? PAS 7342 benefits include: Combating greenwashing: PAS 7342 provides clear guidance on how sustainable funds should align their practices with their advertised strategies, reducing the risk of misleading claims. Enhanced transparency: The standard ensures that investors and intermediaries have access to reliable information about a fund’s sustainability objectives, governance, and outcomes. Building investor confidence: By establishing industry-wide good practice, PAS 7342 fosters trust in sustainable investment products, encouraging greater participation from retail and institutional investors. Supporting regulatory alignment: Complementing the Financial Conduct Authority’s (FCA) Sustainability Disclosure Requirements, the standard is consistent with regulatory frameworks and offers clear guidance in relation to sustainable investments. Encouraging innovation: The non-prescriptive nature of the standard encourages fund managers to explore new and innovative approaches to sustainability, while adhering to a clear framework for transparency and accountability. Download PAS 7342 today and gain the tools to design, implement, and communicate sustainable investment strategies with confidence. Develop a standard with BSI Elevate your sustainability journey and drive positive environmental impact by sponsoring the development of a fast-track standard tailored to your industry's needs. A fast-track standard establishes good practices for products, services, and processes. To find out more download our brochure here or contact us.Read more
BS ISO 32210: A sustainable finance standard for a greener future
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BS ISO 32210: A sustainable finance standard for a greener future

Sustainable finance is at the heart of solving the biggest global challenges that confront us today – including the transition to a sustainable global society. BS ISO 32210 is a new international standard that has been developed to help businesses embed sustainability principles into their financial activity. Today, there are a growing number of financial products and services that claim to be sustainable. However, until now, there have been no global standards that cover sustainable finance in its totality. As a result, companies are struggling with a lack of reliable practices and guidance on integrating sustainability and environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) considerations in their financial decision-making. This lack of consistency and assurance within the market has created an environment of distrust and confusion from consumers and businesses alike when it comes to sustainability claims. International standards are essential for mobilizing finance globally to address environmental and social imperatives and ensure future prosperity. BS ISO 32210 Sustainable finance. Guidance on the application of sustainability principles for organizations in the financial sector is a new international standard that helps firms in the finance industry to integrate sustainability considerations including environmental, social and governance practices (ESG) in the financing of their economic activities. Standardizing sustainable finance with BS ISO 32210 BSI’s Nature Investment Standards Programme was set up with the aim of encouraging a wider uptake of sustainable finance practices, behaviours, thinking, products and services, while helping organizations from the financial sector align themselves with the global UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Part of this programme included developing globally relevant, consensus-based standards on sustainable finance through the establishment and secretariat of a new international committee ISO/TC 322, Sustainable Finance. This committee of experts is charged with creating standards that help to facilitate a sustainable investment market. One of their achievements is BS ISO 32210. Developed in collaboration with a vast stakeholder community and built upon existing efforts and initiatives, it aims to support financial organizations globally. This standard sets out principles and practices to support financial organizations to enable positive environmental and social outcomes, risk mitigation and deliver sustainable value. It provides a framework for organizations that wish to be sustainable and better aligned with global initiatives. The framework recognizes that transformation is needed to equip the industry to address issues including poverty, inequality, climate change, environmental degradation, prosperity, peace, and justice. BS ISO 32210 outlines the key sustainable finance principles which form the core elements of this standard. The principles are aimed at supporting organizations in aligning their business strategy and operations with sustainability goals and objectives that are material to the organization and its stakeholders. To implement its guidance effectively, organizations are recommended to begin by addressing the key elements of the principles starting with ‘governance and culture’ and ‘strategy alignment and objectives’. They can then work through the others. Using the concept of continual improvement and enhancing ambition, organizations can use this BS ISO 32210 to improve sustainability performance and outcomes. Learn how our standards are supporting the UK’s progression to net zero by visiting our Net Zero Topic Page. Which organizations should use BS ISO 32210? The adoption of BS ISO 32210 helps businesses to provide greater consistency and reliability in how sustainability (and ESG) considerations are integrated into their investment decision-making. Its guidance also helps to improve transparency and investor confidence, providing a means for organizations to demonstrate practices are sustainable and responsible. BS ISO 32210 has been designed for organizations to use regardless of their level of expertise or capacity. It can therefore be adopted by any business active in the financial sector, including: Direct lenders and investors Asset managers Financial service providers Beyond financial institutions and intermediaries, BS ISO 32210 can be used by other parties in the financial sector too. These include providers or recipients of sustainable finance, governmental organizations, public and private sector, business entities, industry associations, financial market regulators, and supervisory and control bodies. Other sustainable finance standards In 2021,PD ISO/TR 32220 Sustainable finance. Basic concepts and key initiatives was launched. Together with BS ISO 32210, it consolidates concepts that exist and agree common terminology and international best practice and guidelines for the industry. Both these standards provide a platform from which organizations involved in sustainable investment can develop their products further and enable more players to enter the market. These standards also complement ISO14097 Framework including principles and requirements for assessing and reporting investments and financing activities related to climate change, which helps financiers assess and report on their actions and see the real value of their contribution to climate goals. Over 100,000 more internationally recognized standards are available for simple and flexible access with a BSI Knowledge subscription. When facing the pressure of increasing your positive outcomes for the benefit of future generations, our subscription service puts the control in your hands. With traceability to monitor and demonstrate your business's compliance to standards and self-serve functionality that enables you to manage your standards, users can access standard content quickly and simply. Request to learn more. Make improvements and increase trust in the sustainable resilience of your financial activities, by adding BS ISO 32210 to your collection today.
Compliance management: Setting the standard in financial services
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Compliance management: Setting the standard in financial services

Standards are used across the financial services industry to help institutions and retail businesses manage their internal and external risks and ensure customers are treated fairly. This is done by implementing industry-agreed processes and procedures that allow the adoption of the right level of behaviour and professionalism. For regulated firms, the significance of effective compliance management has been emphasized by major regulatory breaches in recent years that have occurred on a global scale relating to wholesale, retail, and investment markets.  Rogue trading, insider dealing, mis-selling, and failures in Anti-Money Laundering procedures can have major impacts on firms, their customers, investors, and shareholders. Consequentially, firms are seeking to improve their internal systems and controls through additional investment. When compliance is well managed, it helps organizations to detect and prevent breaches, thus reducing their risk of fines and lawsuits. BS ISO 37301:2021 is about implementing an ongoing compliance management system and obtaining a better understanding of good compliance. It specifies requirements and provides guidelines for establishing, developing, implementing, evaluating, maintaining, and improving an effective compliance management system within an organization. In addition to the requirements, which follow the ISO high-level structure, BS ISO 37301:2021’s annexes provide excellent guidance for those interested in gaining a deeper understanding of the need for, and benefits of, good compliance. In 2011, BSI published a British Standard BS 8453:2011 Compliance Framework for regulated financial services firms, developed by industry experts and compliance practitioners to help establish, manage and maintain an effective compliance function. BS 8453:2011 takes a risk-based approach to managing compliance through the implementation of an effective compliance framework. The compliance department needs the support of senior management to prevent regulatory breaches and be truly effective.  How do standards help financial organizations manage compliance risk? Standards, such as BS ISO 37301:2021 and BS 8453:2011, provide best-practice compliance frameworks designed for financial services.  They offer practical advice and guidelines to help firms develop a compliance culture from the top-down, reducing risk to you and your investors, by specifying overarching policies, procedures, and methods for operating a compliance framework within a regulated financial services firm.  The benefits of using BS ISO 37301:2021 include: It brings together the organization’s key structures, policies, processes, and procedures, making compliance management more efficient It helps organizations better understand their context, business operations, obligations, and compliance risks, and implement reasonable steps to meet their obligations It prevents or enables the early detection of rules violations, decreasing the risk of fines, penalties, work shutdowns, lawsuits, and reputational damage It can help ensure that organizations act lawfully and conduct their operations ethically, in line with social responsibility commitments. Adopting these standards allows your organization to work with confidence – knowing that you’re using a set of best-practice systems and controls. The extent to which the requirements of the standard are applicable to an individual firm depends on the nature, size, and complexity of the firm’s business. To learn more about protecting your financial service business from risk and building organizational resilience, click here.  What is a compliance culture? BS 8453:2011 defines a compliance framework as a “series of activities across a firm that, when implemented together, help to ensure compliance”.  To be a compliant organization within the financial and professional services industry, a firm’s governing body, through policies and appropriate training, must articulate the core values which underpin the firm’s relationships with its clients, customers, counterparties, authorities, industry, and markets. These will define the behaviours expected of its staff thereby establishing a compliance culture that promotes integrity in all aspects of an organization’s business. A compliance culture can be promoted by, among other things, mission statements and codes of conduct. A firm’s governing body and senior managers should work with the compliance function and others to drive the culture, identify deficiencies in their business culture and provide solutions. Other key standards in the financial services industry The financial services industry has long embraced standards to simplify integration between service providers and clients. The following titles are also key to organizations in the financial services industry: Information security management – BS EN ISO/IEC 27001 Business continuity management – BS EN ISO 22301:2019 Complaints handling guidelines – BS ISO 10002:2018 Data protection – BS 10012:2017 Compliance Risk Management - BS ISO 37301:2021 Legal Risk Management – BS ISO 31022:2020 Financial advice and planning services – BS 8577:2012 Inclusive service provision – BS 18477:2010 Protect your financial services business from compliance risks by adding the standard BS ISO 37301:2021 to your collection today. Discover BSI Knowledge BS 8453 and over 100,000 more internationally recognized standards are available for simple and flexible access with a BSI Knowledge subscription. In your trust-critical industry, our subscription service puts the control in your hands, with traceability to monitor and demonstrate your business's compliance to standards, and self-serve functionality that enables you to manage your subscriptions, standards, users, and content quickly and simply. Request to learn more.
Data privacy by design: Ensure consumer protection in the digital economy with BS ISO 31700-1
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Data privacy by design: Ensure consumer protection in the digital economy with BS ISO 31700-1

Consumer trust and how well individual privacy needs are met, are defining concerns for the digital economy. BS ISO 31700-1 is a new international standard that aims to tackle this issue, by supporting organizations to take a privacy by design approach. Privacy by design is an approach that considers the privacy of a consumer throughout the design, development, and operations for a product. It requires businesses to consider privacy throughout the entire lifecycle of their products - from before they are placed on the market, through to their purchase and use by consumers, and finally when in the end-of-life phase. Following this structure means that from its outset, you are building the capability for your product processes and their default consumer-oriented privacy controls that provide appropriate levels of privacy. BS ISO 31700-1 Consumer protection — Privacy by design for consumer goods and services: Part 1: High level requirements should be adopted by organizations who wish to take this approach in the design, development, manufacture, marketing, distribution, maintenance, and disposal of their consumer products. It focuses on ensuring the privacy of consumers’ personal information inherent in product design and that is collected as part of the sale and support of consumer products – covering both physical goods and digital services. Implementing the standard will help companies comply with data protection regulations and avoid potentially devastating data breaches that erode consumers’ confidence in the digital world. To learn more about how our standards can support your data protection and privacy processes, visit our Digital Trust Topic Page. The importance of protecting your consumers’ data In today’s digital world of shared platforms, interconnected devices, cloud applications, and personalization, it is increasingly important for businesses to focus on the consumer perspective when implementing robust privacy processes. This includes how their digital goods and services process their consumers’ personally identifiable information (PII) and other data. When PII has been compromised because of outdated, or non-existent privacy practices, the consequences for the individual can be severe. In the UK, the average cost of a data breach has grown to nearly £2.7 million, according to IBM research. In addition, there can be damage to consumer trust of the digital product and potentially legal or reputational impact to the business. As a result, there is growing demand for businesses to think beyond the existing traditional view of data security as yet another cost, and instead, embrace next-generation privacy approaches. Understand the benefits of BS ISO 31700-1’s privacy by design approach BS ISO 31700-1 helps organizations implement systematic management of privacy due diligence with respect to consumer products, as well as provide greater transparency and accountability in the design and operation of software systems that process PII. It will be especially useful to those providing digitally connected consumer products, such as home appliances and wearable devices, mobile application developers, online service providers, and more. Further benefits to businesses of using BS ISO 31700-1 include:  It promotes wider adoption of privacy best practices across all industries  It gives consumers greater confidence in their purchases, by allowing them to take back control over the use of their data It can facilitate access to international markets and boost competitiveness It can help minimize the risk of costly data breaches from occurring and subsequent reputational damage  It helps to prioritize the consumer from the outset of product design, reducing the need to ‘retro-fit’ future products to ensure they meet privacy expectations Discover our other key consumer protection standards As the competition in the consumer goods and services market continues to grow exponentially, businesses are now recognizing that they need to demonstrate their commitment to protecting their consumers in a way they didn’t before. PD ISO TR 31700-2:2023 Privacy by design for consumer goods and services — Use cases isa technical report that provides suggestions on how to use BS ISO 31700-1 as well as use cases illustrating the application of this standard in real world scenarios. It aims to help those implementing BS ISO 31700-1 such as engineers and practitioners who are involved in the development, implementation or operation of digitally enabled consumer goods and services. BS ISO 22458 Consumer vulnerability. Requirements and guidelines for the design and delivery of inclusive service is another international standard that aims to help organizations prioritize the needs of their consumers. It specifies requirements on how to design and deliver fair, flexible, and inclusive services that will increase positive outcomes for consumers and minimize the risk of harm. It supports businesses to identify, understand and support vulnerable customers, making it easier for their customers to make smart and informed choices. In turn, this can lead to better outcomes for consumers and increased customer satisfaction. When using BS ISO 31700-1 and BS ISO 22458 together, businesses can strongly demonstrate that they are actively working to protect their consumers, both in the design of their products and services. To learn more about BS ISO 22458 and its benefits read our article, ‘Is your business doing all it can to support vulnerable consumers?’. As well as consumer protection standards, we have a huge collection of data privacy standards to ensure your business is following data safeguarding best practice procedures. These include:  BS EN ISO/IEC 27701 Security techniques. Extension to ISO/IEC 27001 and ISO/IEC 27002 for privacy information management. Requirements and guidelines  BS EN ISO/IEC 29100 Information technology. Security techniques. Privacy framework  BS 10012 Data protection. Specification for a personal information management system BS EN ISO/IEC 27018 Information technology. Security techniques. Code of practice for protection of personally identifiable information (PII) in public clouds acting as PII processors BS ISO/IEC 27555 Information security, cybersecurity and privacy protection. Guidelines on personally identifiable information deletion Reap the benefits of taking the data privacy by design approach by adopting BS ISO 31700-1 today.  Discover BSI Knowledge Protecting your consumers data can be complex but accessing and managing your standards doesn't have to be. With a BSI Knowledge subscription, you will have the flexibility and visibility to manage the key standards you need to protect your consumers’ privacy with confidence - all in one place. Request to learn more.

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